


A Time to Every Purpose

by marith



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Not a self insert, Not just OCs, historical Remnant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-13 06:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21489760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marith/pseuds/marith
Summary: "How do you think fairy tales and legends get started? Even the craziest ones have to come from somewhere."  -- Qrow BranwenThe "Four Maidens/Story of the Seasons"  tale is one of the foundations of RWBY. It's grown smooth and pretty over hundreds of retellings by a persuasive wizard.  But what really happened?
Comments: 22
Kudos: 24





	1. Chapter 1

Falling off the cliff wasn't the worst thing to happen to Crystal today. Not even though her leg twisted painfully under her on landing, and she could tell as she lay gasping on the ground that more running wan't going to happen any time soon. 

Worst had been the screams at dawn, Russet's terrified face, the sight of the caravan guard who'd flirted with her all week going down under a snarling Grimm twice his size. Screams and the movement of dark shapes and blood - she would've died right there, frozen in place trying to understand, if Iris hadn't thrust two backpacks into her hands and yelled _move!_

The four of them had run for hours. Well, staggered after a while. It had been stupid to stay on the road, she thought now, but the Grimm hadn't followed them. How far had they made it before the growling from the woods? Ten klicks, maybe less? It didn't matter; Crystal had pushed Iris in one direction and run in the other and...and this was probably it. One useless peasant girl ready to be eaten. 

But she'd meet her fate standing up. That was what her family did. Crystal made herself test the leg, wincing; it wasn't broken, she thought, but it was going to swell up soon. She rebalanced the heavy packs on her shoulders, found a stick to lean on, and hobbled grimly towards the patch of brighter green she could see through the trees. Maybe it'd be a nicer place to die. 

It was a clearing, a big one. And at its center sat...a lone small cabin. Crystal stared. Even in the settlements no one lived apart - it would be suicide. Always build in threes, that was the rule; three houses in a triangle with sides touching, two archers, one person always on watch, and the signal fire to warn other groups. _Three-two-one-fire,_ gran had said. _ If you want homes of your own one day, choose husbands smart enough to count. _

Whoever had lived here obviously hadn't been smart. And they were long gone, judging by the overgrown garden and the state of the roof. But she could shelter here, and light her own signal fire, and the others might see...

As she limped closer, she heard the sound of rushing water off to the right. A stream or river, that explained why there wasn't a well. This honestly wasn't a bad location - mountains a few klicks away on two sides, a water source, and soil good enough to grow those orange gourds. So why hadn't more families come? 

The front door was still intact, though grown over with vines. She let the packs fall with a sigh and reached for her belt knife. _Keep going. You can sit down for a bit once you've checked out the inside._ It was a lie, but it kept her protesting muscles from staging a full revolt. 

A flicker of movement in the side of her vision. She turned her head to look at the cabin's one window and 

something

looked

**back**

Crystal screamed, turned to run, and then screamed again as her leg gave way. As soon as she hit the ground she was scrabbling backwards on her butt, eyes fixed on the window. _Oh, gods, it can't get out, the door is blocked, it can't get out the door is blocked -_

Movement of a head. Eyes - those were eyes, blinking. Not a Grimm. Some kind of cryptid? She was going to be eaten by the cryptid of Sanus and never see her family again. Vaguely she was aware that she was panting in terror, whispering "no no no" aloud.

A hand came up and pressed against the inside of the cracked glass. It looked...human. Five fingers, no claws, a palm the same color as hers. 

Crystal swallowed, tried in vain to slow her breathing. "H-hello?" she tried. Shards were missing from the top of the window, it could probably hear her. 

No response. The thing watched her.

"I...my name is Crystal. I don't mean any harm, I'm just traveling through. I'm...waiting for my sisters. Okay? When they get here we'll go."

Getting the fire started without turning her back on those eyes took what felt like hours. She crawled, then lay on her belly to cut branches and thick stalks and a ripe-looking gourd from the garden. Her pack held flint and tinder; the other pack, to her astonishment, held several little packets of fire Dust tied up with string. One of their fellow travelers had been able to afford Dust? 

Well, they probably weren't alive to reclaim it. She used the flint and tinder anyway; Dust was volatile, she knew, though she'd never used it. If...anything got too close she'd throw a packet at it and then throw a branch from the fire at the packet. Surely nothing could go wrong with that plan. 

Darkness fell and nothing happened. Crystal ate toasted gourd and tried to watch in all directions, nervously aware that she couldn't have both the cabin and the approach to it in her field of vision at the same time. She was also very, very aware of how ironic it would be for Grimm to find her because she was terrified of something entirely different. Something that had not, in fact, made any attempt to harm her. 

Meditation was the key to staying calm in these situations. Her father had taught all four of them, but Crystal had been best at it; she was the coldly analytical one. And she was alive tonight, against all odds. Breathe in. Her sisters were alive. Breathe out. They would see the fire. Breathe in. They would come to find her. Breathe out.

She kept herself calm through the night and into the dawn, sitting cross-legged and still except when the fire needed feeding. Her thirst didn't matter. Breathe in. She was perfect tranquility, invisible to Grimm. Breathe out. In. Out.

Something very old watched her, and envied. 


	2. Chapter 2

"Crystal! Oh, thank the gods, Crystal!"

The voice brought her floating up out of uneasy dreams. She forced her sticky eyelids open and looked into Iris' crying face. _Oh. Oh! _

"You're alive," she tried to say, but it came out a pained shapeless rasp. Her mouth and throat were so dry they hurt. So did her head. She held up her hands, cupped together, trusting that her most practical sister would figure it out.

And she did. "Okay. Water, okay. I'll get some." Iris fumbled through the pack next to her and pulled out her leather cup; she hesitated, looking at it, and then reached for Crystal's two packs as well. Among them they yielded another cup and a hammered-metal canteen, and a sieve-cloth for straining. 

"I'll be right back." Crystal watched her sister go blearily and tried to wake up more. It was daytime, midmorning by the angle of the sun. They were both alive. The fire was down to a pile of glowing embers and ash. The cabin - the cabin! Fear jolted through her and she turned to look, scrabbling for her cane-branch though she knew it was stupid. The door was still closed and overgrown. No movement behind the window. 

Had she imagined it? No, no she hadn't. Unlike Russet's, her memories did not get mixed up with flights of fancy. Crystal stretched out her leg carefully, said ow, and resigned herself to not walking for at least two more days. A splint shouldn't be needed if she stayed off it. And, well, if the Grimm - or something else - attacked, a splint wouldn't help. 

By the time Iris came back with a cup in each hand and the canteen slung around her neck, Crystal was sorting through the spread-out contents of all three packs. She and her sisters had collected what they could for the journey: bandages, ointment, dried meat and fruit, small tools for each of them. Soleil had the length of oiled cloth. Russet had stolen the bow and arrows right before they left. 

They'd never planned for being split up.

"Not bad," mused Iris, looking it all over while Crystal forced herself to sip and not guzzle. "Whoever owned this other pack, we should say a prayer for them tonight. Their stuff may keep us alive."

Crystal held water in her mouth for a few moments, savoring the feel of it against her tongue after so long, then swallowed. "You can pray if you want," she said roughly. "I never will again." Not after what happened.

"The gods aren't to blame."

"They didn't help either."

Iris was smart enough not to argue. Instead she said, "Why haven't you searched the cabin yet?"

"There's something in there." The water was gone, and Crystal already wanted more. Patience, she told her body. "Something really weird. Not an animal, not a Grimm...it's like something out of Russet's stories."

"That's..." Iris trailed off before saying _impossible_. "If you're describing it like that, then I'm really curious. And creeped out." She took Crystal's stick and walked up to the window. Cautiously, she tapped twice on the glass.

"Aieee!" She leaped backward, falling on her butt and wriggling backwards much as Crystal had done. 

"Stay calm. It can't get out. I don't think it's even tried." Crystal watched her sister take deep breaths, visibly repeating "In. Out." to herself much like she had last night. She tried to project steady reassurance. "This is still the best place to wait for the others. And now there's two of us to keep watch. We can do this."

"...Right. You're right, Crystal. As usual." Iris scrambled to her feet and picked up the fallen stick. "Actually, I thought I saw something else." She approached the window again and peered in, this time without tapping. Then she went very still.

A minute passed. It felt like ten. "Iris?" Crystal said eventually. Carefully, calmly. "What do you see?" 

"It's a person." Finally Iris backed away again, shaking her head. "There's a person trapped in there."

"That's impossible." The vines growing through the hinges were years-thick. 

"It's wearing _clothes._"

There was nothing to say to that. So they didn't. Iris cut more branches and gourds out of the garden, and Crystal toasted pieces of the sweet orange flesh on sticks. Several more trips to the river quenched their thirst and eventually required a latrine trench, dug in the earth with hands and their knives. They built the fire higher this time. Neither of them mentioned Soleil or Russet, or the past, or the future. 

For the hundredth time, Crystal thought about how different life in the city must be. Behind those great stone walls with hundreds of guards it would be safe to talk about anything. To scream, cry, rage, shout at each other until you'd both gotten all the terrible feelings out. To be as afraid or sad as strongly as you needed for as long as you needed it. 

In the city, their mother would have survived.

As the sun began to set, Iris left off digging in the garden and pried a board out of the sagging fence around the clearing. She laid it down flat by the fire and began to arrange things on it: her cup, two-thirds full, several pieces of toasted gourd, one square of hard bread from the stranger's pack. 

"What are you doing?"

"I've been thinking," said Iris, staring down at the makeshift tray. "To stay here tonight and not be afraid, I have to think it's a person. And if it's a person, then they need help."

Oh, no. "Can't we test that theory in the middle of the day? Maybe when I'm able to run?" 

"I can't wait that long. I'm going to do it now, before it gets dark." Helplessly, Crystal watched her sister walk away with the food. Fear twisted in her gut; _breathe,_ she ordered herself. In, out. She'd been lucky yesterday, when she first saw the thing in the cabin and it had taken hours to get her feelings under control. They couldn't count on luck holding. 

Iris put the tray down by the door and got to work on the hinges with her knife. The vines must've been softer than they looked; it was only a few minutes until she took hold of the doorknob, breathed in and out and in and out, squared her shoulders and pulled. 

The door creaked open with a puff of dust everywhere; Crystal could see it settling on the food, and hoped that cryptids weren't too fussy. There, framed in the doorway, sat the thing. 

Iris had been right. It was wearing clothes, a shirt and pants so old they were disintegrating and much too large for it. A vest that looked like leather had held up somewhat better. The thing had a beard, a long scraggly white one, and a balding head poking out of a fuzzy halo of pale hair. It blinked at Iris and said nothing at all.

She coughed, waving away the dust with a hand. "Sorry. Um. Hello, sir. My name is Iris. I'm on a journey to the city, and I'm waiting for my sisters. This is my other sister Crystal." She pointed, and the thing turned its head and looked directly at Crystal. She raised her hand and wiggled the fingers in a tremulous wave. 

_I will never ever doubt Iris' nerve again,_ she thought.

"We made some food for you," continued Iris doggedly. "It's not much, but it's what we could find. I hope it's okay for us to stay here until our sisters arrive. " 

She moved the tray directly in front of the thing, nearly touching it - Crystal caught her breath - and backed away. After a few moments it reached out a long-nailed hand, very slowly, and picked up the leather cup. Iris nodded. 

"Okay. We'll bring you more tomorrow. Good night, sir." Iris jogged back to the fire, only a little too fast to be casual,and sat down with a sigh of relief. 

"Crystal, it's just a man. He looks almost starved to death. He can't have the strength to hurt anyone."

"But that's - impossible." She'd circled the cabin yesterday and seen no other exit. "How could he have survived?"

"I don't know." 

They sat in silence and practiced calm breathing until moonrise. This time Crystal was able to make herself look outward for Grimm during her watch, even if she did occasionally glance back over her shoulder. She didn't suggest closing the cabin door again, although she wanted to. 

Later, she lay with fingers in her ears, trying not to hear Iris praying. "Lord of the Waters, Lady of the Broken Moon, thank you for your blessings. We're grateful for the strangers we meet and the gifts they leave us; teach us to be kind to strangers in our turn." 

Something much older heard as well, and was thoughtful. 

The next morning, when Iris brought more water, the man rasped out words for the first time. 

"Thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

It was late afternoon before Soleil found them.

Iris kept on throwing herself at the overgrowth like some kind of avenging garden angel. "We might be here for a while," she said. "And we'll get tired of gourd, and I - I need to stay busy."

Which left Crystal with the job of talking to - not _the thing_, she couldn't call him that anymore, she told herself. The old man. Their host.

He huddled on the floor of the cabin, never leaving that one spot in front of the door. When Crystal hobbled over to sit nearby, right after breakfast, he stared at her so piercingly that she flinched and dropped the canteen. She barely managed to catch it before all the water spilled out. If Iris had stopped to _notice_ the clever little mechanism to hold the lid shut...oh well. She squashed down annoyance with the swiftness of habit. 

When she looked back, he was huddled in a different shape than before, hugging his knees and watching the pile of shredded vines next to Iris grow ever larger. Crystal made herself study him as she would any newly-met and potentially dangerous stranger: frail and thin, even more skeletal than their father had been at the end. Brown eyes that seemed clearer and more human in the morning light. The unkempt hair and beard could've sheltered entire bird families. This man wasn't at all well, and yet...she knew the stench of sickbed and deathbed, and could make a guess about long imprisonment. But there was only a faint musty smell here. And remarkably little dirt. In fact he was cleaner than half the men she'd known back home. 

Some lucky people had powers, she knew. The settlement's guardian warrior could call up a blue crackling shield around him in battle; his "Semblance", he called it. But what power could explain these contradictions? 

She couldn't ask "why aren't you dead", and she had to say something. "Is it really all right for us to be here?" _Please don't kill us in our sleep._

Without turning his head he rasped, "It is. But why are you here?"

"The caravan we were with got attacked, and...we were really lucky. I only hope my other sisters were too." She didn't let her voice shake.

"Travel is dangerous, then," he mused, as though it wasn't an obvious fact of life. "Why have you chosen to risk it?"

They'd been asked the same thing a dozen times in the last week. Crystal gave him the same answer she'd given Kane and the caravan traders. "The settlement wasn't a safe place for us anymore with our parents gone. We're hoping the city will be better."

She expected "Why not?" but instead he said, "And which city would this be?"

What? "The...city. There's only one. There's only ever been one." Was he addled? She stared at him,. trying to gauge if he was just mildly confused like gran, or worse. Though he kept on placidly watching Iris, she was able to catch a glimpse of the expression on his face by leaning forward and pretending to stretch her hurt leg. 

He was smiling, just a little. And then one bushy eyebrow quirked up - she'd been caught - and the intelligent amusement in that smile made her feel about five years old. 

"I need to practice walking," she said abruptly, and stood up so quickly that a jolt of pain ran down her leg. Ignoring it, she limped across the yard.

"Iris. _Iris_."

"What?" Her sister crawled out of a tangle of underbrush, knife in one hand, dirt-smudged and glowing with mid-project fervor. "There's a whole bunch of different plants surviving down here, herbs and vegetables. I think vegetables. Once I get the area clear, I should be able to replant the whole thing. And we can take some seeds with us when we leave."

Crystal mentally crossed the idea of leaving tomorrow off her list of options. Once her sister got invested in doing something, she wouldn't quit until she was satisfied or someone set it on fire. (And she'd never forgiven those boys.) Instead she said, "He's really weird."

"The bad kind of weird?"

"Probably not," she admitted. "But he's watching us and _thinking_ and...I don't know how to explain it." It was ridiculous, but she had the strong sense of being a small creature studied by a larger one. "He's looking at us the way you're looking at those plants." 

"You want to switch places for a while?" Iris asked with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. 

There were thorns in that overgrowth, no doubt, and bugs and snails and old tough roots. "Not really." Crystal sighed. "I'll try again. Maybe if I had something to do with my hands - Any good fiber-stuff in that pile?"

"Try the brown pods, they've got fluff in them. Or the vines with the leaves like this. I'll start saving them for you." Iris bent to plunge back in, then paused. "And Crystal?"

"Hm?"

"You analyze people like that all the time. You're just not used to someone doing it to _you_." Her grin was smug enough to call for hair-pulling retaliation, if they'd been safe at home. "Now you know how the rest of us feel."

When Crystal returned to the cabin's front stoop it was with a pack full of plants. The old man pretended to doze as she sorted out stems from seedpods. At least she was pretty sure he was pretending. She poured more water from the canteen into his cup anyway. 

Strip the stems and set them aside for drying, roll the fluff between her hands until it formed a sticky rope. The rhythms of the everyday chore soothed her mind. As sturdy, off-white yarn coiled around her drop spindle, the observing presence next to her began to feel more familiar. Listening, silent, nonjudgmental. Eventually, as though the warm sun was relaxing something in her throat, the words began to come out. 

* * *

"Mother was always passionate. We loved that about her, and so did Father. She would laugh with Soleil and play games with her in the yard while the other mothers were doing chores, because she said we needed fun more than a scrubbed floor. And she and Russet would make up the most fantastic stories, epics really, and tell us a new chapter every evening. Whenever any of us got in trouble with the teachers or the priests, she would go charging in to defend us - even if she knew we were wrong.

"When gran died, she took it hard. But we knew she was going to, and we were all prepared. Father would sit with her and say, "What's one good thing that happened today?" and keep asking questions until she could find something good. Iris and I took over most of the chores so she could spend more time with Soleil. Russet would tell stories from gran's life, and repeat all the fairy tales she taught Mother when she was young. And I kept asking her to help me practice meditation. She would do it, every time, even though she knew it was just a ploy. We got through the first year, and her grief eased. 

"When Father got sick, we tried to do the same thing. We really _tried_." Her voice shook with emphasis. "He helped us plan out what to do, even as he got weaker and weaker. But none of us deep down really believed he was going to die. And then he did." Crystal spread out her hands, helplessly, seeing the callouses and small scabs on them. "Life is cruel and we have to bend with it serenely, like a tree in the wind, that's what the scripture says. But Mother was like a tree blasted by lightning.

"She cried all the time, and she didn't care that the neighbors could hear. Even worse, she cried in public. And she got so angry. After the funeral she told the priests she'd prayed and prayed for her husband back, and asked them what point there was in faith if the gods wouldn't listen to her. They tried to tell her about the balance of life and how loss comes to everyone, but she insisted it was different for her. It was injustice, Father wasn't old or weak, it hadn't been his time to go. 

"Everyone stopped talking to us by the second week. It got hard to buy things at market. We started to find tokens left at our door, black feathers, dishes of spoiled food. The priests warned us to calm her down, and we tried, but she wouldn't listen. She just didn't care anymore.

"And finally, a month after Father's death to the day, I came back from gathering in the woods and she was." Crystal swallowed. "She." Angrily, she wiped at her eyes - _stupid tears_ \- and then caught her breath in surprise. 

A brown, gnarled hand was close to her arm, the long curving nails nearly but not quite touching her sleeve. She looked up and met the old man's eyes. They held more sorrow than she'd ever seen in anyone: not an angry sadness like hers, but resigned and patient. He nodded to her, once, and pulled back his hand. That was all. But her throat felt clearer.

"She was sitting in her chair and the cup was on the ground. Her lips had green on them and I...just knew. I held her hands and she smiled at me and said the moon, she knew how it broke now. The Lady broke it when the Lord died, because the world would never be whole again. Then she started vomiting and. It was over by the time my sisters got home, at least. That's a thing to be grateful for." _Always find things to be grateful for. _

Crystal took a deep breath. Almost done. "When I brought the cup back to the senior priest he didn't even try to deny it. He told me they gave her a choice and she drank willingly to protect us. That we should take comfort in knowing she cared about the safety of her family, if not her community. And that he expected to see all four of us next week,right up front. I smiled at him and promised. We started planning our journey that night. "

If he'd said something sympathetic, she might have given in and sobbed. If he'd said one word about negative emotions, she might've thrown the spindle at him. But his words were thoughtful, measured, and once again not what she expected.

"Was it necessary? What they did to your mother?"

He said it like it was a genuine question, one he didn't know the answer to, and that halted the "No" at her lips and made her actually consider. 

"I...want to say no." Her hands clenched in her skirt, and the neglected rope of fluff broke and smeared her palm. "The Grimm attacked twice that month, and that's pretty typical. But both times they came over the wall _right_ next to our three-house. We saw the claw marks. Our warrior said they headed right for us, and maybe he was told to say that. But maybe not."

"Only one warrior to protect all of you?"

"Well, yeah. We - _they're_ a small settlement, just a hundred or so, and he was the only one with a Semblance. The other men stand guard, of course, and help with the small ones. Anyone can do that. Even Russet shot a bird-shaped one once, though we kept it a secret. But true warriors aren't born often, you know. They say most of them choose to protect the city, that's why it's so much safer there. "

"Do I?" The look on his face was distant now, as though he were fitting pieces into some invisible puzzle. Did she look like that to other people? "So the Grimm are a severe and constant danger, and your leaders chose to focus on suppressing the populace rather than bringing out their potential to fight back."

The last thing she wanted to do was defend the priests, and yet she had to ask, "But what's the alternative? Ordinary people can't fight those monsters, not the big ones. And they home in on negative emotions." He hadn't said it, so she would. "We're putting you in danger by being here. Even having this conversation is dangerous. Why are you letting us stay? How have you not been attacked? " Oh no, she hadn't meant to blurt that last one out. 

Distant amusement. "Those are large questions. As a partial answer, I would say that "ordinary people" have more strength and potential than you were raised to believe. As for myself, well." His head turned to take in the sky, the garden, the trees beyond. "I suppose I haven't felt much of anything in a very long time."

The other question in the back of her mind was now shifting from "Why aren't you dead?" towards "_Were_ you dead?" Crystal didn't think it prudent to ask either one. She picked fluff out of her skirt and returned to spinning, and they shared a a peaceable silence until Soleil came running up the path and leaped into her arms with a shriek of joy. 

* * *

"I'm so glad you're both okay! I ran and ran and then I tripped and this faunus found me, Iris there are _faunus_ out there and they're so much friendlier than we were told, he was so tall and he had these cute deer ears that flicked back and forth and antlers, and..." Soleil paused to gulp a huge breath. She was perfectly capable of talking like a normal person, she'd done it at sermon and school, but her preferred conversational speed was full-tilt. 

"I want to hear more about this faunus, but get some food and drink in you first and let me check you over," Crystal told her. Three out of four. They were almost all safe, and Russet had the best chance of any of them. _Please, gods, I said I'd never pray again but please..._

Soleil was in surprisingly good shape after two nights in the wilderness - some bruises, a torn and ragged fingernail, and a shallow scrape on her abdomen that someone had already cleaned and bandaged. Crystal looked the neat work over with surprise. "The faunus did this?" 

"Yes. His name was Chamois." Soleil sighed dreamily. "We spent the night at his place, and he took me here in the morning, he said his friends saw a fire and it was probably you. I wanted him to meet you all, but he said no." Her shoulders drooped. "I _really_ liked him."

Crystal and Iris exchanged a look. "When you say really liked..." 

"No, I swear, nothing like that!" Soleil's eyes were brimming pools of innocence. "Just a little kissing. Well, a lot of kissing. Mostly." 

The strange part-animal people weren't allowed in any settlement Crystal knew about, and she doubted the city would be any more welcoming. And a human with a faunus child...she hoped the deer-man had been sensible as well as kind. 

"Well." Crystal sat back on her heels. "We've been all right here so far, so just stay put, okay? No going to look for Russet or anyone else. There's plenty to explore here. And you can talk to...our host." She moved out of the way so that Soleil could see the cabin with its open door. 

Her flighty sister and the old man stared at each other. And stared. And stared, until Iris began nervously, "Sir, this is our sist-" She was interrupted by Soleil bursting into laughter.

"What is THAT? He looks like a scarecrow covered with snow!" 

"Be respectful!" Crystal hissed, but it was hopeless; Soleil was already making a beeline for him. She dropped to her knees and they stared at each other some more, closer up.

"Why do you look like that?"

"How else should I look?" 

"Most people cut their hair at some point," she informed him. "And your clothes are falling apart. Why are you sitting on the floor? Were you out here all alone? Wasn't it dangerous?" Her eyes widened suddenly. "Were you _dead_?"

Crystal put her face in her hands. 

"Not as far as I'm aware," he answered seriously, as though it was a perfectly reasonable question. "If I was, how would I know?"

"Oh." She appeared to think about this for a moment, and then shrugged. "What's your name?"   
  
The prudent thing to do at this point would be to pull her sister back and start babbling apologies. On the other hand, very few people could get angry at Soleil. She was like summer sunshine personified.

But she didn't think an answer would be forthcoming, and she was right. "Hmm. Perhaps you could pick one for me. And what is _your_ name, young lady?"

Soleil got to her feet, brushed down her muddy skirt, and swept him a curtsey. "Soleil, good sir. Soleil...of the Vale!" She twirled around in obvious pleasure at her own cleverness. "I am on a journey! And I am waiting for my sister. You'll like her, she tells the best stories."

"I look forward to it, then," he told her. "The Vale, then, is that where you are all from? You hail...from the Vale?" Amusement bright in the brown eyes. 

"Yes!" She beamed. "You get it! I mean, it's just another word for valley, but it sounds much grander. I think it should be our family name, when we get to the city. Everyone says we'll need one. Now, show me around. I want to see everything!" 

"I..." For the first time, the old man looked slightly taken aback. "There isn't much to see, my dear."

Subtlety was a foreign language to Soleil, but she was never cruel; Crystal saw her glance at the tiny dilapidated cabin, and then at the overgrown yard. "So? You must have a favorite tree and places to sit, and a rock that looks like an animal or something. And then we can play hide and seek, you've got the home advantage but I'm very good at it."

He blinked at her, clearly nonplussed. "You want me to...join you outside?"

"Why not? You don't stay in there all the time, do you?"

An awkward silence followed, broken by another silvery peal of laughter. "You DO! That's ridiculous! It's so much nicer out here. Come on. " She held out a hand. 

He looked, Crystal thought, even more ordinary when baffled. She could hardly believe that yesterday she'd seen a cryptid instead of this gentle hermit. Was it all due to familiarity? 

Perhaps not. Certainly he looked a little more sturdy after vanishing into the shadows of the dark cabin and returning with an ancient floppy black hat. And his clothes, when he finally stepped across the threshold, proved to have no embarrassing gaps or holes despite being threadbare. They stayed on his emaciated frame through the expedition to look at Iris's garden progress, an interesting bug in the grass, and several flowers. At that point Iris vetoed hide-and-seek in favor of preparing dinner, and he sank down on a rock with obvious relief. 

"Sorry about that," Crystal said to him in an undertone as she cut up onions and mushrooms. Thanks to Iris' digging, they had more variety tonight. "My sister is a force of nature. If she's a bother, we can get her to back off." 

The old man smiled. "Not at all, she's quite refreshing company. Despite all you've endured she seems quite happy." The tone of his voice made it half a question. 

"Everyone has their way of coping. Soleil has known since she was very small that unhappiness is bad. So she is always happy, and does her best to make others happy. No matter what." Crystal lowered her voice again. "She's completely sincere, and yet in a way it's an act. We play along because we're afraid of what will happen when it stops." 

Words she'd held inside for a long time, with no one safe to say them to. It felt good to hear them spoken aloud. 

The old man just nodded, but it was enough; she was understood. "And yet," he said so softly she had to lean in to hear, "I am grateful for her performance."

She let the tilt of her head ask the question. 

"I had forgotten the sound of laughter."


	4. Chapter 4

_Screams at dawn, Russet's terrified face_ \- Crystal sat bolt upright. A dream. It was dawn, but they were by their fire outside the cabin. Next to her Soleil made a small protesting noise at the loss of warmth, but didn't wake. Iris stood further away, by the broken gate.

"What is it?" If her practical sister wasn't keeping close to the fire, it wasn't nothing.

"Screams. Just now." Iris didn't turn her head as Crystal came up beside her, still scanning the dim forest. "Some human, some not, I think."

_Oh no._ No amount of calm breathing could stem the tide of cold fear that swamped her. This was it. She'd been pretending to feel safe here, but really, hadn't they all known how it would end? They were peasant girls, never allowed to so much as get near a sword. Helpless by design. The old man's words drifted through her mind, unexpectedly: _"Ordinary people" have more strength and potential than you were raised to believe. _

Shaking trees just beyond the edge of the forest. A gutteral snarl that was all too familiar from nights spent crouched in their house, holding hands and praying. Run? Hide? Wake their sister, or leave her a few last moments of peace? Conflicting instincts rooted her to the spot. Crystal felt Iris take her hand, heard the familiar words begin: "Lord of the Waters, Lady of the Broken Moon-"

And a figure burst out of the woods. She stumbled, went down, rolled to her feet and kept running without a moment's pause. The great black wolf-creature loping behind had paws bigger than her head. 

_"Over here!"_ They screamed it in unison, and Russet heard; she changed direction smoothly, angling towards the cabin. The Grimm kept pace with her, obviously holding back. Its bony white head, marked with angular red lines, moved from side to side as though scenting her fear. 

_It's playing with her,_ Crystal realized, and with the thought she felt her knees unlock. What could they do? Dust, the packets of fire dust - she turned and lunged for the stranger's pack, past Soleil who was up and pulling branches out of the fire. The three little cloth bundles met her fingers after a moment of scrabbling. 

Russet was sprinting across the clearing towards them now, panting for breath, the creature at her heels. Without thinking Crystal grabbed a flaming branch from Soleil and charged. Its glowing red eyes saw her, narrowed -

\- and then everything went green and still.

Her foot was about to come down, her body leaned forward into the act of running, and yet she felt no sense of motion. Through a greenish haze she watched the Grimm stagger backwards; it howled silently in anguish as emerald fire ate through its limbs. In seconds there was only ash. 

Just as a sense of dizziness was beginning to creep in around the edges of numb shock, the green vanished like a blown-out candle flame. Her foot resumed its interrupted progress. She had an instant to think _not again_ before the rest of her body landed on top of it in a painful sprawl. 

"Get the torch away!" A man's voice, sharp and commanding. 

Crystal felt someone fumble at her hand, prying her fingers open. _Oh, that's right,_ she thought vaguely, _I'm the one with the torch. _

"I've got it." Her bravest sister's voice sounded uncertain, trembling, and that was wrong. "What...who are you?"

"No one of importance. And you, young lady, might I venture to guess that you are on a journey and here to meet your sisters? What is your name?"

She ought to be getting up and talking. Why wasn't she getting up? Crystal turned her head, smearing her cheek against the dirt, and squinted upward. 

Three days ago (less?) she'd seen a wretched, barely-human creature that scared her nearly as much as the Grimm. Now she saw a king out of fairy tales. 

The gnarled hunch was gone, but it wasn't standing straight that made the old man seem to tower over them; it was sheer commanding presence. His tangled hair and beard now looked dignified, the tattered clothes merely suggesting that he needed no trappings of wealth. Only the sharp eyes under bushy brows were unchanged. He looked down at Crystal, and though his gaze was kind she would've flinched if she had the energy to move. 

"I'm sorry, but you were all in great danger. The amount of fire Dust you're holding would have exploded a good part of this forest. You must handle it with great caution and keep it far away from sparks and flames. Miss Iris, if you would collect it and help your sister up? She'll recover in a little while." 

As Crystal staggered to her feet, clinging to Iris' arm and trying to blink away one last little green blotch that seemed stuck in her vision, she heard the younger two begin a classic flanking assault. 

"My name's Russet, but I'm not sure how you can say that it's more important than yours, given what just happened. What did you do to that Grimm? Thank you, by the way."

"That is the coolest Semblance EVER! Nothing could stand up to that, no wonder you're able to live out here. You should invite more people, you could protect a whole settlement by yourself."

"I'm not even sure that was a Semblance. Soleil, has he done that before? What do you know about him?"

"Well, we know he's nice but lonely, he doesn't eat enough, and he used to stay indoors all the time which is ridiculous. I think he was like the princess in the story, enchanted to sleep for a hundred years, and then Crystal woke him up. ...Not with a kiss, though. I don't think any kissing was involved."

"No, it doesn't seem likely. Were you cursed or enchanted? By a wizard? Are wizards real, then? How long have you been here?" 

"You'd think they'd be more polite, considering," muttered Crystal. "Or at least cautious. I feel like we all ought to be more afraid than we are. And more in shock. To the stoop, please, I want to sit out of the way and watch."

"I know what you mean," whispered Iris back, "but I just can't. It would be like being afraid of Father." They both turned their heads at the sound of the old man's laughter; he looked equal parts charmed and amused, as though two kittens were trying to interrogate him with a piece of string. "Somehow I don't think they're going to learn much from him, though."

"Me neither."

* * *

Several hours later the battle of wills between Russet and the new object of her fascination was still a draw, to everyone's entertainment. Soleil had given up the verbal fencing and settled down to clean and cook the two rabbits Russet had managed to hang on to in her flight. She'd dropped the bow, unfortunately, but Iris had plans to make another. Crystal smoothed out a wide stretch of bare earth, set logs around the edge, and cleaned the five wooden bowls and one pot the old man had produced from somewhere in the depths of the cabin. Iris turned strange garden plants into food with deft flicks of her knife. As the "table" began to accumulate what could almost reasonably be called a feast, the conversation never paused. 

"I know more fairy tales than anyone else I've ever met, and you definitely belong in one. If you tell us your story, we'll keep your secrets, I promise. I just want the chance to pass on a legend." Russet was trying another tack. 

"Then I'm afraid you're looking in the wrong place," the old man retorted smoothly, with a look of such believable sincerity that Crystal was positive he'd negotiated treaties, in some other time and place. She'd been tongue-tied and silent before the eloquence of the priests; now, she thought, she would never be daunted by such small men again. 

"All you see before you is an old hermit living a humble and dull life, with no one to love and nothing to his name. Legends demand more exciting subjects."

Speaking of not being daunted - "That," she heard herself say crisply, "is hogwash."

Iris almost dropped the pot of rabbit stew. Soleil clapped her hands in delight; Russet looked annoyed. _I almost had him!_ she mouthed silently and untruthfully. The old man just raised an eyebrow.

"And why do you say so?"

"You have the one thing most desired in all the world - freedom from fear of the Grimm. You can live anywhere, go anywhere, say and feel anything! You don't have to keep other people happy and hope they'll protect you. Even if all you do with it is sit here alone, you have the _choice_. You could do so much!"

Belatedly she realized that all her sisters were making 'abort' gestures, their mouths open in shock. _I just called the kind man who saved our lives a lazy lump, didn't I. That is what I did._ "I - I'm sorry!" She made some frantic gestures of her own. "That was too far, I didn't mean it. Sir." 

He only smiled at her, a little sadly, though most other men would've at least aimed a slap. "No, you're quite right, Miss Crystal. After so long alone I've forgotten a great deal about the world, including just how fortunate I am. Choice is one of the greatest powers of humanity. Thank you for reminding me of that." 

Everyone picked at their food in silence for a little while. Crystal thought about the growing ball of coarse white yarn tucked into a pocket of her skirt, and the pair of socks she'd already planned to make with it. But she needed to give him something now. Ignoring the pain in her leg, she stood up and hobbled over to the log where he sat. He patted the spot beside him, and the simple forgiveness of it made her want to cry. 

Instead she said in a low voice, "Do you know why I'm named for winter?" 

The old man shook his head. 

"Both my parents liked the idea of a child named for each season. And most people think of the year as starting in spring. But my father used to say that winter was the true beginning; nothing can grow without those still cold months, a time to think and rest and be at peace. So he named his first child for winter, to remind us," she slowed, picking her words carefully, "...that it's okay to be in that season for a while. It's a part of the cycle, spring will come when it's ready." 

She hoped he understood the message: _something must have hurt you a lot. You don't have to say what it was, or come back into the world just because we came along. Even if it's obvious how much you needed this. _

"Your mother would've reached spring again as well, if she'd been given time."

Oh, no. "Stop it," she choked out, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm supposed to be the one saying wise things to you right now. Eat the food." But she was satisfied. 

* * *

The silence grew easier after that, but no one wanted to pick up the conversational ball until Soleil threw a piece of gourd rind and said cheerfully, "Pumpkin for your thoughts?"

Gnarled but sturdy fingers plucked it out of the air without hesitation. "Ah. I suppose I was thinking about destiny and fate." He pointed the rind at each of them in turn, like a teacher gathering attention. "You have come here, maidens of the seasons, to such an unlikely place, and shown great kindness to a strange old man. Why me, why now? Where does this meeting fit in the pattern of history?"

This was so obviously Russet's territory that no one else said anything until she sighed and gave in. "I know I'm the one who always talks like that - stop laughing! - but not everything is like the fairy tales. Things don't need reasons to happen. And my sisters would've been kind to anyone they met. We're small people in a scary world, of course we all help each other."

The old man nodded thoughtfully, though Crystal had the sense he wasn't convinced. "A cogent answer, Miss Russet." He fell back into quiet, and this time they just talked around him. It was easy with Soleil there; her excited retelling of events to Russet had to be corrected, and by the rules of sisterhood she was due a lot more teasing about the 'handsome deer-man'. 

Iris waited for the last bits of meat to be gleaned from the pot before she named what they were all trying to avoid. "What do we do now?"

"We could stay here for a while?" Soleil offered hopefully, and all eyes went to their host. 

He wiped his hands delicately on a leaf-napkin before answering. "You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, of course, but I'm afraid it will not be comfortable here as the weather here grows colder." Which was a very polite way of saying that no, they weren't allowed in the cabin. If nothing else, Crystal thought even as her heart sank a bit, she was learning how to smoothly handle people from this man. And she'd filed several of his turns of phrase away for future use. 

There was a daunted pause. "When we left the caravan, it was three days away from the city, one of the guards told me. But we don't know which way we ran," she said. "We'll have to find the road and then figure out which way to walk."

"Food shouldn't be a problem, if we can stay here for the rest of the summer," said Iris. "I can store up things from the garden and make our packs ready, and dry what Russet brings in." 

"If you can make a new bow, I can hunt on the road," added Russet. "Until then, there's traps and snares and fishing. "

Soleil bit her lip; whatever she was thinking, she kept it to herself. 

"If we stay calm and keep our spirits up, there's no reason for the Grimm to notice us." No room for doubt, so Crystal made sure there wasn't any in her voice. "Maybe we'll meet another group with guards. Maybe we won't even want to travel with them, we'll be safer on our own." 

Silence. They all knew the chances, but they'd known them when they left the settlement. The only way to go was forward. 

"Maybe," Soleil began hesitantly, "we could -" 

"Tell me, what would you do if -"

They both broke off. A meaningful look was exchanged. Hands were held behind backs. "One, two.." counted Soleil aloud. "Three! Um. What is that supposed to be?"

The old man looked down at his hand, held out open-palmed and sideways. "Knife beats paper, yes? I believe I win."

"Knife? It's scissors." She wiggled her fingers to demonstrate. "It's always been scissors, you silly. But I guess it still beats paper, so you can go first." 

"It seems the rules have changed since I last played," he murmured. "Well then. If I may ask a question that sounds foolish, what would each of you do if you didn't fear the Grimm? If you had that most precious freedom of choice, as Miss Crystal put it?" 

It _was_ a foolish question. But the kind their mother would have asked. _Shake yourself out of the problem, sweetheart,_ Crystal could hear her saying. _Imagine something _other_. And when you come back, maybe things will look different. Even if they don't, you'll have eased your mind for a bit. _

So she considered. "If I could do anything with my life," she said slowly, "I would make a settlement where people could live more safely. No, not just that. Where safety isn't something held over your head to get you to fall in line and...do things." The words came out with more honest bitterness than she'd meant them to. After so much shock and fear her control was slipping.

Of all the faces around the table, it was only Russet's which showed surprise. And then mounting suspicion, as she looked at each of her sisters. "Is there something you didn't tell me?" 

A great deal, and Crystal meant to keep it that way. She shrugged and said lightly, "Let's just say we were lucky our settlement's warrior preferred men. It doesn't matter anymore. We're out of there. Iris, what's your answer?"

"The sea," Iris said immediately. "Well, the river first. I want to see how they build the boats and how to sail them, what it's like to see water all the way to the horizon. How people live far away." There was a dreamy look in her eyes.

"I thought you'd say something about inventions and art." Soleil sounded as surprised as the rest of them.

"I can make those on a boat. What about you?"

"I want," she said with unusual decisiveness, "to help the faunus in the forest. Not just Chamois, don't look at me like that, they're all people just like us and I never knew. And I think it's been really hard for them. If I didn't have to fear the Grimm, then they wouldn't either."

That was two surprises. But they all knew what Russet was going to say. "All my life I've tried to get strong. When none of the fighters would help me I took their stuff and trained on my own. I can hunt as well as any man in the settlement...and it was useless." She thumped the ground with her fist, almost knocking over a bowl. "One single Beowulf and it wasn't even _trying_, and I couldn't do anything but run. Even worse, I panicked and led it to all of you. If I didn't have to fear them..." Her eyes, dark and intent, were focused on something only she could see. "I'd kill _all_ the monsters and protect everyone." 

"Four good answers." Something in the old man's voice made the hair on the back of Crystal's neck begin to stand up. "Four maidens full of kindness, with dreams to help others."

"Well, not mine," pointed out Iris. She seemed oblivious to the hint of power that whispered behind his words. (Was it just overstrained nerves and imagination? No, not after this morning. )

He smiled. "You brought your clever hands and energy to my garden, for no other reason than that you saw a possibility. I have no doubt that wherever you go, you will bring them to those in need. Yes. Yes, it will do." The last words sank to a whisper, and his eyes closed. 

Was he falling asleep? Crystal shifted away towards the edge of the log, planning to get up quietly, but his hand shot out and caught her wrist.

"Join hands, please." They did, hesitantly, forming a circle with Crystal on his left and Soleil on his right. 

When his eyes opened again they crackled with green and gold lightning. Crystal tried to jerk her hand away, reflexively, but if his grip had been strong before it was like the roots of a mountain now. Green fire was running down his arms, into the linked circle, into them, buzzing all the way down to her bones, louder and louder - 

She could hear a voice, somewhere, reciting something. "_Paragons of virtue and glory...by my shoulder protect thee..._" And then nothing.

When she came back to consciousness, her face was pressed into the dirt. Again. "You could have warned us," Russet was complaining muzzily.

"I feel really tingly. Iris, make it stop." That was Soleil.

"Hey! Don't go to sleep, sit up and explain this!" Iris' voice, angry. Crystal tried to push herself up in obedience to the command, and got far enough to see her sister holding the old man by his shoulders as he slumped down. So she wasn't the one being told to explain things this time. That was good, because green pins and needles were prickling all over her brain. She shook her head, trying to clear it. 

Eventually, she said, "Stop shaking him, Iris, he can't tell us anything till he recovers and at this rate you'll snap him like a twig."

"How can you be so calm? We don't know what he did to us!"

"Yes...we do. Close your eyes."

There was a pause. 

"It tingles," Soleil repeated. "I'm not sure if I hate it or not."

Russet had managed to stand up. She cupped her hands in front of her, concentrating. "I think..." Leaves blew into her palm and danced there, as though moved by an impossibly precise breeze. "I think I know too."

It was obvious, now she'd demonstrated it. Crystal hummed along to the green vibrating in her bones, touched her fingers to the surface of the water in her cup and made it freeze solid. Soleil made little bundles of wispy grass in the dirt and set them aflame one by one. Only Iris continued to scowl.

"We didn't ask for this thing inside us, we didn't ask to be able to do tricks." She glared at the front step of the cabin, where they'd laid the unconscious hermit out with one of the rucksacks under his head. "He seemed so nice. He saved our _lives_. And then - why does everyone we know turn out - nnngh!" In sheer frustration she fell to her knees and smacked the earth with open hands. An instant later she yanked them away as a lightning bolt sizzled down between her fingers. Tiny blobs of glass lay cooling where scattered sand had been. 

"You could kill any Grimm with power like this." Russet sounded a little dazed. 

Soleil knelt down and hugged Iris. "At least you can go see the ocean now. Bring me back a seashell."

Iris closed her eyes, her shoulders slumping. "...Yeah."

* * *

Much later, after the shouting had died down and her sisters had fallen asleep by the fire, Crystal limped back to the doorway. The old man huddled into himself on the step, embracing his knees and rocking back and forth a little. She had the distinct impression he was reluctant to go inside the dark cabin. 

"Why _did_ you do it?" she asked him. "I'm not going to yell at you, Iris has that pretty well covered. I just want to know."

They'd asked him dozens of times already and been met with stubborn silence. But now he answered at once, as though it was just a question between friends on a summer night. "I have never wanted to hold power. I'm not suited to it. But others -" he smiled, sadly - "disagreed, and so I tried my best for a time. 

"To be a hero is an impossible task. Save one village, and know that elsewhere in the world five others are falling to Grimm or bandits. Slay an ancient evil and know that others will rise in its place. Bring peace to a region and its people will be grateful...for a time. And then they will inevitably come to resent you. It is never _enough_, you will never be _done_, you can never _stop_."

The sheer weariness in his voice made further questions die on her lips unasked. (Had he actually said 'stop', or 'stop _her_'?)

"So I retreated far into the wilderness." The old man gazed out over the fire, past her sleeping sisters into the dark. "Away from my responsibilities and the knowledge of my failures. It has been so long now. Even the fairy tales no longer remember me, or your sister would surely have mentioned them."

"It's true," Crystal admitted. It was what she had wanted to ask. "Although we don't know all the stories, just the ones that were told in our settlement. Russet has been looking forward to seeing a real library in the city." She had plans herself now, to pore over the books in search of a warrior-king with the elements at his command and a Semblance like green fire. 

"I might as well have been dead. And yet, you awakened me." 

Crystal opened her mouth to apologize. 

"Your self-possession and calm in the face of such hardship, the peace you radiated...you were the most interesting thing to happen to me in centuries." 

She closed her mouth. 

"Then came bright industrious energy, kindness like warm sunshine, and a brave spirit that burned like an autumn bonfire. All four of you scattering gifts and helping others as you lived your everyday small lives. And I realized that I'd gone about things all wrong back then. No hero can save the entire world. The weight of it will surely crush anyone who tries. But a simpler, more honest soul, free from that burden, wielding the power as she saw fit..." His hand came up to trace an outline in the air, then fell back to his knees. "I could tell you, Crystal, that I gave each of you a portion of my magic to keep you safe from harm. But the truth is that I believe you will help humanity with it more than I can."

The way he'd said her name, without the "Miss," made her feel warm and yet somber. She felt as though she was being addressed as an equal for the first time. _But I don't want to help humanity_ wasn't a thing she could say in the face of that. Neither was _why don't you leave here and try again yourself?_ She settled on, "Do we have to live forever now?"

"No," and the smile in his voice was as reassuring as the word. "Don't worry. You are just as you were, in most respects. You may even discover your own Semblances one day; your own power lies within you as well as mine. I look forward to hearing the deeds of the Maidens of the Vale."

Crystal eyed her still-aching leg, propped up on the rucksack that the old man had been using as a pillow. "The Maidens of the Vale aren't going to do many glorious deeds if we get ourselves hurt so easily."

"Indeed. Fortunately, I may be able to provide some assistance there. It would be best if the four of you stayed another few weeks and learned to master your new magic, and unlock your defensive capabilities as well. "

Iris wouldn't be pleased, but she'd have to admit it was the sensible course of action. "We will." It occurred to her there was something else she ought to say. "Thank you. For doing this. It wasn't what we wanted and you should have asked us first...but if you hadn't, we probably would've died out there before we ever reached the city." 

He just nodded. They sat in silence for a while. No need for breathing exercises now, and yet Crystal's mind fell easily into the familiar peaceful _In. Out._ thoughts. She looked up at the moon, full tonight like a great glowing broken plate, and wondered idly why the pieces never fell.

Tomorrow would bring more arguments, and if it came down to it she would side with her family. But tonight she would sit with her friend and keep him company against the gaping open door behind them. No one, she thought, should have to live in the dark alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it turned out there has to be an epilogue. Yes, I always do this.


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many years later...

"Ma'am. Ma'am?"

Crystal looked up. Her youngest armsman was standing before her, looking uncertain. 

"Sorry, Tomas. I was lost in old memories for a moment. What is it?"

"The Lady Iris arrived a little while ago." The beseeching _don't make me ask her to wait longer_ look in his eyes was unbecoming of a guard, but understandable. Iris had infinite patience in matters of art and science and very little when it came to people. 

"Please show her in." She sat up and stretched, not caring that it made her sleeves fall down her arms. Twenty years ago she'd still made sure every little movement signaled the right things, so that she'd be taken seriously. These days she found a little careless eccentricity actually made people respect her more. 

Speaking of eccentricity - "There you are! Napping on the throne, were you?" Her sister swept in, trailed by two apprentices struggling under the weight of parcels and bags. Crystal met her in the middle of the room for a hug.

"Of course not. Vitally important classified meeting."

"Uh-huh."

"How was your journey?"

"Completely dull - I hardly believed it possible, what you claimed in your letter, and yet we didn't see a single Grimm of any size down the whole length of the Vale. Not to mention cleared roads, mended bridges, patrols, and a complete lack of banditry. How times change.” Iris waved aside the greatest achievement of Crystal’s life with a breezy hand. “Now. I’ve got some sketches you’ll want to see. Girl, bring my notebook. No, the other one, don’t be daft. And don’t drop the maps!”

The laughing Soleil in the drawings, each smaller than a child’s palm, looked real enough to step through the page at any moment. There was a profile of young Chital, his horns finally curving up the way he’d been hoping for since he was six. The whole family snuggled together with firelight playing across their faces. Crystal reached out to trace the lines with an admiring finger. 

“You’ve gotten even better. Some of these will be portraits too, I hope.” Crystal paused, touching Chital’s face again. “How is our grand-nephew?”

“A very angry young man, and no fonder of you than he was,” Iris said dryly. "His father knows just how much the faunus depend on your good will keeping the city in check. But the younger ones only know they're scorned and barely tolerated here, and they imagine they can fight back." She shook her head. "When he comes into power it's not going to be pretty." 

Crystal had gone over it all so often by now, forced herself to imagine the worst futures and plan for each one. She should be used to admitting the truth. "No, it won't. Soleil and I have been trying to prepare them, but most people still don't grasp what a world without the Maidens will be like. What the elders tell them is just stories."

"Well, they'll find out sooner or later when we die." Despite the tart words, her sister's eyes lingered worriedly as she gathered up papers. "Try not to fret so much, eh? Only makes you thin and tired. You've given this place almost forty years of peace, it's enough. You've done good work here."

"Good work" was the highest praise in Iris' lexicon, bestowed rarely but fairly whether you ruled a city or scrubbed a floor. Crystal only smiled. "Let me walk you to your rooms. You can bask in the glory of your own good work before dinner."

"Pipes holding up?"

"Beautifully. Every time a man tries to impress me with jewels or furs or some exotic gift, I tell him it's very nice, but my _sister_ gave me an indoor plumbing system."

They sent the apprentices ahead to unpack and took the long way through the halls as they chatted; she found herself walking as slowly as possible, wanting the easy mood to linger. "There's something you should know," she said at last, reluctantly. 

"Mm?" 

"He's here. Asleep, in the rooms next to yours."

The stricken look on Iris' face meant she didn't need to explain further. 

* * *

They knelt together in the chapel, beneath the great stained-glass window of greens and golds. The bright armored figure in the center stood triumphantly with one foot on the neck of an enormous dragon Grimm, magical staff in hand. Somehow the artist had managed to depict the monster starting to dissolve, a cloud of black flecks floating in amber glass. It was the center point of the city and its most visited landmark: the chapel of the hero Ozarian. 

Iris lit a taper with shaking fingers, then a votive candle to set beside the others on the altar. "I never thought it could happen. Silly of me, death comes to everyone. But he never seemed to change in all these years." She shook her head. "How long?"

"Not long now, I think. He rarely wakes, though he talks in his sleep sometimes." With a clerk always on hand to write down the words. Crystal wasn't going to miss a last chance to learn.

"He's always refused to leave the cabin. How did you persuade him?"

Crystal lit a candle of her own. Beside it she put down one cinnamon sugar cookie from the pouch at her belt, crumbling around the edges and looking completely out of place on the polished stone. No doubt it'd be gone before sunrise, furtively snatched and eaten by some hungry acolyte; the gesture was what mattered.

"The last several years I've been bringing a litter with me. The porters would wait outside the clearing and he'd pretend not to see them." An unspoken offer so they wouldn't have to talk about his growing frailty. "The last time I visited, he didn't come to the door to greet me. I found him collapsed on the floor."

"You went _inside?_"

She just nodded. Iris didn't ask; they'd long ago guessed that no magic or secrets lay within, just a painfully bare room hidden by an old man's pride. "I carried him out, and he didn't argue. He's been here two months now."

Her sister glanced up, the flick of her eyebrows a question that firmed into its own answer. "You didn't show him this place, did you."

"Of course not." 

Back then, Crystal had imagined combing through old books and collecting stories for years to find any trace of a warrior-leader with a Semblance that glowed green and amber. But they'd barely been in the city a day before overhearing their first ballad. Child (or champion) of the gods, slayer of dragons (or goliaths or leviathans), defender of the weak. All tales and songs of Ozarian agreed on two things: his magical aura like sunlight on leaves or emeralds set in gold, and that he set down his weapons and left after the death of his family, defeated by grief when no monster had sufficed. 

The great hero had to be the man who gifted them with power - and yet the songs, and the chapel, were centuries old. No one had a precise date or any written records about him. The scholar who kept the castle's library told them the legend was thought to predate the city itself. When they traveled back to the cabin the next year to visit their friend, none of them had the nerve to bring up the subject, not even...

The second window in the chapel had dozens more candles burning on its altar, along with little offerings of fruit and late-blooming wildflowers. Two young girls knelt before it in prayer; as Crystal and Iris approached, they ducked their heads respectfully and left, holding hands. The Fall Maiden was said to protect women warriors and those who defied expectations to choose their own path in life.

"Still the best work I've ever done," Iris murmured as they lit their candles. "I wish they could see it." 

It was true. Ten years and more now, and Crystal still marveled along with her sadness when she looked up. Russet stood with her sword upraised in a warding gesture, her face intent and her stance not posed in triumph but ready for action. Her two wolfhounds flanked her and red chrysanthemums blossomed at her feet. The colored panes of glass in their thick leading were shaped to harmonize perfectly with Ozarian's window, and yet Russet seemed far more lifelike. Iris had never told anyone the technique she used to render the face so delicately. 

"We'll see her again," Iris said, as she always did. She patted Crystal's hand. "I know you don't believe it, but just let yourself imagine for a moment. When our friend passes she'll be there to greet him and demand a trade of stories. Copper and Tod will knock him over and lick his face again. And she'll finally get to hear the truth about his life. She wanted to know the most, and she'll find out before the rest of us."

She had to smile. "I wish I did believe, it sounds wonderful. Would you have our parents there to meet him, too?"

"Naturally. Perhaps I'll paint it for you, hm? 'The Reunion'. " 

"....I would like that." 

It was safe to grieve in the city these days, and she'd done her share of raging and weeping. But it seemed just as fitting to tell a fairy-tale happy ending in Russet's honor and hold it in her mind now and then, like a candle. 

* * *

  
Late that night she woke to a maid at her bedside with a lamp, and the message from the physician she'd been half-expecting.

Iris was already there when she arrived. The old man's eyes were open for the first time in days; his hands rested limply in her sister's, too weak to grip, but he was returning her smile with a faint one of his own. 

"Remember how mad I was, back then?" Iris was saying. "It took me years to forgive you, old man. But you gave me a good life." She squeezed his hands lightly, carefully. "Thank you."

A tiny shake of his head, and the little crook of his mouth that said _you did it all yourself_ as clearly as words could have. He glanced at Crystal and she obeyed, drawing close to the bedside and then lowering herself carefully to be closer still. She'd pay for all this kneeling in aches and pains tomorrow; but what was a body for, if not to bend itself to the important tasks?

"I think," he began, and then coughed and coughed as they held his shoulders to steady him. When he finally sucked in a clear breath, his face was drawn and intent. 

The girl she used to be would have begged him not to talk, to save his strength, Crystal thought. But she'd sat at enough deathbeds by now to know better.

The old man tried again, carefully pausing for breath after each word. "Not...the end."

"Not the end of what?" Iris asked. She took his hands in hers again. 

"The Maidens. I think." His eyes were crinkling in amusement at their surprise, and his dry chuckle seemed to hang in the air, the memory of a sound that would never be made again. "The power...may pass on."

Whatever she'd half-thought he might say, it hadn't been that. They both stared at him, eyes wide. "Does that mean there's another Fall Maiden, now?" Iris demanded. 

He nodded. 

"But we would have heard! Magic like that...if anyone wielded it, word would have come to the city."

Another silent chuckle. "The world...is far larger than this Vale." He had to stop there, panting for breath; Crystal pointed at the ewer of water questioningly, but he shook his head. 

"Is there any way to pass on our powers to someone we choose?" she asked him. 

He shook his head again, and managed a tiny shrug.

"Well. I suppose it's nice to know, but..." Iris paused. "No, it is important. Crystal should warn her heirs that another Maiden might appear someday, and that they oughtn't go handing her the keys to the city just because she can call down a thunderstorm." 

"The faunus too," Crystal agreed. "We've no idea what sort of person might suddenly find themselves with powerful magic. Are we certain it'd even _be_ a maiden and not a boy? ...Please tell me virginity has nothing to do with it, at least."

His appalled, indignant look would have been the funniest thing she'd seen all year, in any other situation. She smiled anyway as she leaned forward for an awkward embrace. "We'll figure it out. Or someone will. Don't worry."

"You've done good work here," her sister assured him in the gentle voice she reserved for small children and Soleil. "We'll take care of things from now on."

"I know you will. I look forward to..."

And that was all, save for more coughing and a mess on the bed they would try not to remember later. When he was finally asleep again they left the servants to finish cleaning up and withdrew to her chambers. Crystal sank onto her bed with relief, stretching out her stiff legs, and let Iris pour them some wine. 

"What do you think he meant by looking forward? Not much forward left to look. A day or two at most, I'd say."

"I don't know." And she wasn't going to acknowledge the tiny suspicion that was taking root in the back of her mind. Some things shouldn't be thought about. "It's been a long day and I don't want to think anymore. Iris...tell me the story."

Iris flopped on the bed next to her like the teenager she hadn't been in a very long time, and they clinked glasses. "The reunion?"

"No...from the beginning. It's in the drawer to your left." 

"Yes," her sister murmured. "It's a good time." Carefully, she took the slim book bound in golden leather from its resting place and opened the first page. Russet's words, Iris' drawings, Soleil's flowing calligraphy; each of them had a copy. It was safe to begin reading it to children now, she supposed. But tonight it was still theirs alone. She leaned over Iris' shoulder to follow along as the words were read aloud. 

_"Deep in the forests of Remnant, beside a great and mighty river, stood the small, fragile home of a cold, frail man- a lone wizard._

_Hidden from the dangers and distractions of the world, the wizard seldom had visitors. But on this day, as he peered out his window, his gaze fell upon a young maiden..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun imagining the true events that might lie behind the fairy tale of the Maidens. It has always felt to me like a benevolent sort of propaganda, a story that's survived for thousands(?) of years because Oz and his allies find it useful. Suddenly acquiring magical powers has got to be very alarming; it helps if there's a legend you can fit your experience into, one that reminds you to use your new gifts to help people.
> 
> I never thought Oz made the story up out of whole cloth but it seemed far too stylized and Disneyesque. (Depressed hermits probably don't keep themselves very clean and tidy, for starters - why bother?)
> 
> The city-state Crystal ends up ruling will eventually become Vale, of course; I think it's Oz's favorite of the four kingdoms for a reason, and the one he tends to come back to if he can. 
> 
> Comments/questions always appreciated!


End file.
